If you had to start all over again in this day and age

richop
Coupled with your ARC pre, I believe you’d be tickled pink with their Ref 150 se. Very reasonable used.

Also, their all in one Gsi75 is no slouch either if you wanted a one box solution. As neutral as the 150 and can deliver the crystalline highs I like without being cold, thin or "whiteish". Can find these used once in  awhile.

Now all of my blather is based on if your tastes run as mine do as described in an earlier post. In short, I'm not into "beautiful sounding" as I am into "reality" sounding. I would say the "bloom" of the old ARC stuff is about gone nowadays and you would be disappointed if your tastes still run in that direction.

Ok, so back to my original question. As I am "chicken and ignorant" to get into streaming, for those who have listened to both: how does a streamed delivery compare with a "burned cd"? 

I have the Arc CD-8 and it's darned good or I should say "I like it".

arro222 OP

  ... how does a streamed delivery compare with a "burned cd"?

As with so many things in audio: It depends. However, a high quality hi-res stream can better the CD equivalent. CD can't match the potential of something like Qobuz.

arro222, I think that the DAC has a much greater effect on the sound than the streamer. If your CD-8 has a digital in you can plug your streamer into it. I think streaming will sound as good as a manufactured cd. The DAC in the Node 2i probably isn’t as good as your CD-8, but it’s not too bad.

Does your DAC only work at 16/44.1 or does it do high-res? Many albums on Tidal or Qobuz are available in high-res and may sound better than a cd, not always the case, but it does happen.

Get started with a Node 2i and I’m pretty sure you’ll be happy with streaming. If you want to try something better later you can move the Node 2i on with minimal loss. I think you’ll enjoy it.

The real benefit of streaming is that you can find so many albums that sound great that you probably never would have heard without streaming. If you like to discover new music or hear music you just never got around to buying, streaming is like being a kid in a candy store, to me anyway. They won’t have everything you want, but they’ll have most of it.

On streaming, tech wise it’s really painless. Of course you need internet access. Ethernet cables access to your modem is best, but some streamers like the Bluesound will also work over WiFi. 
The three streamer dacs that I currently use are the aforementioned Bluesound in my budget office system, Cambridge 851n in my secondary system and Teac NT-505 in my main system. 
There are big sound quality performance increases at each of those steps. The Teac is still relatively affordable at $2k and sounds amazing, but it requires Ethernet (no WiFi ). 
The Bluesound is the easiest to use and has the best user interface app of the three, but it’s dac is wanting IMO. Ymmv